15 year old Matthew Barton, of Bishops Stortford Swimming Club, recently travelled to France to compete with the British Team at the 12th European Heart and Lung Transplant Games. This year’s event was being hosted in the city of Vichy. The Vichy pool facilities were  amazing,  consisting of an indoor leisure pool with currents and flumes, a learner pool, a 25 metre warm up/down pool and an 8 lane 50 m outdoor pool, all built within the last 6 months.  However temperatures of 34˚C there were concerns about swimming in the 50m pool given the water temperature and its effect on the swimmers.

Thankfully the weather cooled for the event and Matthew got off to a flying start taking gold in the 50m freestyle with a time of 30.51 some 15 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. This was the fastest time of the meet. A time of 38.78 secured a 2nd gold in the 50m backstroke followed by 41.36 to take his 3rd gold in the 50m breaststroke.

Matthew’s hardest challenges came in the 100m breaststroke and freestyle, swimming against the Norwegian senior Φyvind RФed.  In two closely contested races, Matthew took his 4th and 5th  gold’s  winning the 100 freestyle in a time of  1.12.19  just 2 seconds in front of the Norwegian and  in the  100m breast Matthew managed a time of 1.29.92 with Φyvind just .9 of a second behind him.  The icing on the cake was another gold medal when Matthew anchored the 4 x 50 relay team into 1st place in a time of 2.37.11.

Overall the British team won 16 gold medals resulting in Great Britain being top of the medal board!  Matthew now has his sights on the British games in Sheffield in August, If successful in Sheffield, his goal is to qualify for the World Transplant Games in Australia in 2009.  Matthew would like to give a big thank you to his sponsors Mamdani Opticians of Bishops Stortford and the Sports Council for their support in 2008.